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THE DOOR OF 10 DOWNING Street opened. Theodore Ferguson – an old Gordonstounian with prematurely grey hair and a moustache - advanced to a podium followed at two paces by his spouse. Cameras clicked, whirred and flashed, otherwise there was an expectant silence. He rearranged a sheaf of papers and waited till his cabinet had assembled behind him with his wife to the fore, then smiled.
“This morning,” he said, “I went to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament. She kindly agreed to my request, with the result that a general election will now take place on June the tenth.” He paused to allow this information to sink in, although it had been universally anticipated, and continued, “I have always believed in the values of fairness, justice and equality. Over the last five years, my party has striven to weave these values more securely into the fabric of British life. Since the beginning of the global economic recession, our determination to live up to our ideals has not only remained intact, but has strengthened. We will say to the British people, we have your deepest concerns at heart. Let us continue to work together so we can all prosper on the most solid of foundations. Thank you.”
He gathered his papers, smiled again and retired without taking any questions.
Jilly got up and switched the television off.
Hartley-Brown’s flat had a bedroom, a bathroom and a living room. He’d painted the walls cream, hung Colourist prints of Iona and the Côte d’Azur and had a new carpet laid. The day he realised he was in love with Jilly he bought two new linen sofas and had the old ones put in storage in case they smelt of the previous owner in a way only a sensitive nose might discern. When she returned to sit down, he put his arm round her.
“Will you have to go electioneering now?” she said.
“I doubt it. My father’s always told me to keep out of the way before. I mean, as in, pretend you don’t exist.”
“Yes, but you’re older now than you were five years ago. And you’re really good looking. I’d vote for whoever you told me to. I’d take one look at you - ”
“I think he already has lots of helpers.”
“I’m only asking because I thought we could do it together.”
“What? Go canvassing?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“What about your fans? People don’t like the Conservatives. Or they like to make out they don’t.”
“I’ve been talking to a lot of celebrities lately, friends of mine like Gary Boyler and Kim Flatt. Lots of us are going to get involved. Not like, ‘I support this party’, although we’ll each have to choose one, but like, ‘Don’t give up on politics, it’s important’. Young people have got to realise.”
“I never knew you thought that.”
She started to undo his shirt buttons. “There are lots of things you don’t know about me, John.”
He stood up. “Don’t Jilly, please.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just I – I really like you,” he said, putting his hands on his head and walking to the other end of the room. “Actually, that’s wrong. I don’t ‘really like you’. I’m in love with you.”
“What?”
“I didn’t set out to be, honestly. I’m sorry. I know it’s mixing the professional and the personal too fully. I mean, a day out at Hampton Court or walking round Hyde Park with a bag of doughnuts, that’s mixing the personal and professional, but I was off duty, and it’s not the same because - ”
“Stop there, Jonathan. Just stop there.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, because the feeling’s mutual.”
“But you don’t understand, Jilly. When I say I love you, I don’t mean I want a string of dates and sex in a lift. I mean, I really love you. Like I want to be with you twenty-four seven.”
“I can beat that. Three sixty-five.”
“And a quarter. For ever.”
She leapt on him and their mouths banged into each other, their eyes closed and they fell over on the coffee table.
“Stop,” he said, gasping for breath. “Jilly, I’ve never asked you for anything like I’m asking this now. I love you. I love you. Put your coat on. We’re going for a walk. Just trust me. I love you, just trust me.”
He was already getting ready to leave. She got up, looking bemused, and put on her coat and shoes and linked arms with him. They went downstairs. It was dark and raining hard. They didn’t have an umbrella. When they’d crossed six streets, he turned to her and kissed her passionately.
“I’m a secret agent,” he said.
“But I thought you were a policeman.”
“I was, once. I can’t tell you much, Jilly, but I don’t want to deceive you any more. I love you.”
“I don’t understand. What does a secret agent want with me?”
“We’re looking for the man who shot the photographer, that’s all. Someone thought it would be a good idea to interview the celebrities who were the reason why the photographers were there when each photographer was shot.”
“So all this stuff about your father being a Tory MP - ”
“That’s all true. The only thing I lied to you about was being a police inspector. It’s just, I don’t want to sleep with you because I could be being filmed.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got to get used to the idea, when you’re in my line of work, that people might be gathering information to blackmail you. By whatever means.”
She laughed. “Jonathan, what century are you living in? Haven’t you heard of One Night in Paris? Or Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee? There are couples knocking all over the net. It’s not as if they’re hurting anyone. It’s not like being cruel to children or animals, there’s no shame. Well, yes there is, I suppose, I wouldn’t want it, but no one could blackmail you.”
“Apart from anything else, you’d look pretty stupid on film if you’d never had sex before.”
“But I have,” she said.
“I meant me.”
She gasped then grinned. “Ah, I see.”
“And my father would look ridiculous if they showed it in the multiplex in Hertford,” he added by way of lightening the mood. “He’d probably lose his seat.”
She started giggling and she couldn’t stop. They had to find a bench so she could sit down.
“I love you,” he said. “I may not be able to sleep with you yet, but I’m going to prove I’m serious. I’d like you to meet my parents.”
“What? Really?”
“I’ve never introduced a young woman to them before, not on a ‘this is my girlfriend’ basis. They probably think I’m gay. Not that it matters what they think.”
“Jonathan, how much money have you got? I mean, on you?”
“Not much. I’ve got a credit card. Why?”
“I’ve got about eighty pounds. We could find a random hotel. No one would have time to set up a camera and we could switch all the lights off.”
His eyes lit up.
At midday Marcie got off the train at King’s Cross and took the tube to Shoreditch. She had to cross the local park to get to the Leisure Centre where she was supposed to meet Miss Demure, and when she was halfway, she was attacked by a middle aged man in a donkey jacket and jeans wearing a wig as a disguise. She was on her back in front of him before she realised what was happening.
“Give me your bag,” he said, wiping his mouth. She guessed he’d been drinking. Her heart raced.
She knew the sensible thing was to do as he said, but she didn’t want to – her bag had her pocket money, iphone and credit card in. There were people around, so she knew she wouldn’t have to run far to find safety. She bounced to her feet and was off across the grass.
But he seemed to have anticipated this. He gained on her and with her hair loose behind her, she was vulnerable. By the tennis courts, when he was almost on top of her, she threw herself on the ground and he caught his boot on her torso and flew headlong, landing on his neck.
She was in agony, but she put it out of her mind and bounced to her feet – this time into battle. She kicked him in the face as he was getting up. He flipped backwards like he was on a spring, his nose smashed. She kicked him again in the left temple when he began to raise himself. This time he didn’t move.
She was gasping hard. All around her, she could see couples walking or lying on the grass, children running, dogs scampering. Why hadn’t anyone helped her? She felt giddy and liberated and for a moment all she wanted to do was laugh.
Then she began to tremble and reached for her mobile and dialled 999. There was a CCTV camera nearby. Assuming it had film in, she wouldn’t have to say or do much in court.
They were asking her for a description. She was light headed and short on focus. A description, a description ...
But when she looked back to where her mugger lay, he’d gone.
On the other side of the park, Celia Demure sat in her flat and waited. A leather suite faced an unused coal fire, and a bookshelf stood beside the one window. Her only personal possession stood on a tea-table beneath a lamp: a framed photograph of herself – jet-black hair, heavy make-up and a cheongsam - with a rugged blond man, fifty years ago on a balcony overlooking the Larvotto in Monte Carlo. At its base, a strip of paper read: ‘Like the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee. Psalm 42.1’.
It was about time now. She switched the television on and went to AV. The screen was hooked up to a closed circuit camera so she could watch her latest prospect fail to fend off Clive. Looking at the way she ambled across the park, she wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Clive had instructions to challenge her and, if necessary, rough her up a little to test her reflexes. ‘The police’ would retrieve her bag for her later, minus Clive’s fee.
When Marcie threw herself down and Clive had a crash Celia Demure realised she’d misjudged her and she thrilled. She inched involuntarily forward when Marcie went on the attack. Kicking Clive twice in the head – that was good thinking. Most people would have gone for his chest or stomach and left him relatively unscathed.
But what really struck her was what Marcie did when the battle was over and Clive had scrambled away.
She threw her head back and laughed.
She had a prodigy on her hands. Five minutes later there was a knock at the door. Miss Demure grabbed her walking stick and leant on it.
Marciella showed up even better than she had on camera. There was nothing of the ragbag about her, unlike of so many other girls her age. Smart grey mini-skirt, newly-ironed button up blouse and an Alice band.
“Come in, come in. You must be Sir Anthony Hartley-Brown’s daughter, Marciella.”
“Call me Marcie. Marcie Brown. I’ve never liked the ‘Hartley-Brown’ thing. It sounds like a bad kind of jam.”
“Just ‘Marcie Brown’.”
“I hope this doesn’t seem like too much of an imposition, but the police might be along shortly. I was almost mugged a moment ago.”
“Oh, my. Are you all right? Sit down, please sit down. Let me get you something. A cup of tea with lots of sugar – or coffee?”
Marcie sat down on the armchair. She didn’t appear unduly shaken. “I thought I’d better report it right away, otherwise he might pounce on some other poor woman. I’m not fazed.”
“How did you manage to get away?”
“Oh, I – I kicked him in the head. Sorry if that sounds a bit unladylike.” She laughed. “It was good gymnastics training, though.”
For a moment, Miss Demure thought Marcie might know more than she was letting on. But then she saw her remark for what it was: an honest assessment of her own reaction. She had style, that was clear. She already liked her a lot.
“Do you want to interview me?” Marcie said.
“Not to decide whether to take you on. I’ve already told your father I’m happy about that. But I would like to find out a little bit about you and find out whether I’m suitable for you.”
“You for me?”
“What I’m offering in the way of work is by no means permanent. When I terminate your contract, which eventually I’ll have to, what will you do?”
“I’ll find something.”
“I don’t want you to look back and feel that you’ve wasted a year of your youth humouring an old lady.”
“Miss Demure - ”
“Celia.”
“Celia, my parents are very well connected. I know that sounds smarmy, but it isn’t. It’s just a fact. They’ll find me something. Talking of that though, there’s something I suppose I should tell you. It’s ... I’ve a criminal record.”
Miss Demure reared slightly. “Really?”
“That’s why I’m here, I guess. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what I’d be doing.”
“What sort of a criminal record?”
“Some boys were bothering a friend of mine outside this club in Hertford, about three in the morning. She was drunk. We both were, although I wasn’t half as plastered as her. The rest of my so-called friends wanted to leave her, but I didn’t – the guys were druggies, for God’s sake, they’d probably have raped her - so they left both of us. Anyway, the boys started skateboarding at us so I picked up this guy’s board and smashed his jaw then I threw it at the kid on the bike and he crumpled and the police happened to be driving by and it’s all a bit hazy after that.”
“I see.”
“I always think that in most fights, if you haven’t won in the first thirty seconds, you might as well throw in the towel. You don’t save the big guns till last. I’m sorry if that’s a bit off putting.”
“On the contrary, it’s nice to meet someone with a bit of pluck.”
Marcie beamed. “Thank you.”
“I don’t exactly have an unblemished past myself. It may sound incredible – you’ll probably think I’m making it up, but I’m not - I used to run a criminal gang when I was younger. You don’t need to know the details. Suffice it to say, we’re not as different as you might have imagined when you walked in here.”
“I think I’m going to like this job.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not easy to work for. I demand one hundred per cent at all times. I don’t necessarily hold the conventional working day sacrosanct, I may ring you up in the middle of the night and tell you to come over and start practising. I don’t necessarily think eight hours a day is enough. There will be times when you hate me, whatever you might think now. The most important characteristic you can possess is a strong will. The will to see things through, whatever contrary emotions may grip you along the way. Do you think you’re up for that?”
“Sure, but ...”
“But what?”
“I thought you were starting a gymnastics school. You make it sound like a military training camp.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
Marcie leaned forward as if there was a third person in the room, listening. “I’ve lots of secrets. Not mine, other people’s. I’ve never let a single one go.”
“Very well. It’s going to have a self-defence slant. No one wants to do straight gymnastics any more. But martial arts, how to throw and fall and avoid - those sorts of things have street credibility. Of course, we’re merely talking about City executives living out Ethan Hunt fantasies, but it’s where the money is nowadays. And they’re not going to part with their money for nothing. Most of them are intelligent enough to recognise an inferior product, and there’s a lot of competition out there.”
Marcie was nodding. “Cool.”
“And so don’t tell anyone. I mean anyone. Consider it an industrial secret.”
Orlov and Bronstein sat in Orlov’s flat, drinking bourbon and playing chess. The television was on in the background.
“Should we be worried about Jonathan?” Orlov said.
“He’s utterly gone for this girl. I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell her all about us. If he hasn’t already.”
“Do you think he’ll tell her about the bug?”
“I’ve taken it out of her flat. I’ve told him that too, so he’s nothing to tell her.”
“Do you think it’s worth my applying to be her bodyguard?”
“Nope.”
“I’m reluctant to have him taken off the case, but if Ruby Parker finds out he’s emotionally involved, she’ll probably insist.”
“We’d better make sure she doesn’t then.”
“Can we justify that?”
“Sure. If this had been old-style MI5, MI6, CIA, I might have been worried. But the way MI7’s set up, no one’s worth capturing or pumping for information. Imagine you’re captured by some hostile foreign government and they start torturing you. What are you going to tell them when you finally crack? All you know is that you work underground with someone called the Red Maiden, whose agenda you barely know, and that there are other colour Maidens whose agendas you don’t know at all. They’d probably think you were on LSD.”
“Which may be precisely why she’s got that designation.”
“Besides, how many times is a guy like Jonathan going to fall in love? This is his big one, maybe his only one, him being a cop. And it’s not like she’s working for Dr Evil. She’s just a kid and we’re monitoring her because we’re desperate.”
“We’re assuming she’s not working alongside Kramski then.”
“If she is, and she lets on, Jonathan’s so honest he’ll come running to us. Think about it. If you’re in love, you tell each other things. If she’s got anything worth telling, this is our best chance of finding out what.”
“You don’t think she could turn him, get him working as a double agent? Worst case scenario, but there’s no point avoiding it.”
“Some people will sell their souls for love. I’m not underestimating how badly Jonathan’s been bitten, but I don’t think he’s one of them.”
“He’s an odd character.”
“My grandmother survived the Holocaust. She lived with us when I was a kid, so I’ve spent a lot of my life listening to stories about genocide and survival and wondering why I’m so lucky to live in peacetime and how soon it’ll be before it all comes crashing down again. She actually used to read me Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk at bedtime. You lost your wife and kids, I can’t even begin to imagine what that must be like. Yeah, Jonathan looks odd to us, but it’s only because he doesn’t reek of the underworld.”
“Do you think Jilly Bestwick has anything worth telling us?”
Bronstein moved his Bishop two spaces. “On balance,” he said, “yes. For his sake, I hope it’s not too much.”
Orlov’s landline rang. He stepped two places to the window sill, picked it up and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said, after a moment. He hung up, resumed his seat and moved his rook five spaces to the left. “Check.”
“Anyone I know?” Bronstein said.
“Julian, the doorman. Jonathan’s on his way upstairs.”
“You invite him?”
“No.”
“Guess he must have had a eureka moment.”
They stood up and went to the door. Hartley-Brown appeared, mounting the stairs in a jumper and jeans with a laptop under his arm. He looked sombre.
“What’s up?” Bronstein said.
“I think I’ve found something,” Hartley-Brown said.
Orlov laughed. “You don’t look very happy about it.”
“It’s Jilly,” he replied.
Hartley-Brown put the laptop on the table and switched it on. They all drew up chairs.
“I had an idea,” Hartley-Brown said. “David, it was after you said you’d recovered six hundred photos from hard drives. It struck me we might be able to group them, put them into some sort of sequence, maybe even make a computer program to fill the missing links or reference different angles. To cut a long story short, I created the program and fed the images in as I thought they should go and pressed ‘process’. What came out was a photomatic, not very good, but good enough to cast new light on what happened. ”
Bronstein laughed. “Way to go, Jonathan, you’re a dark horse.”
“Ingenious,” said Orlov.
“Firstly a control. This is Daniella Mordan coming out of the Dorchester last year, before the shootings began. The paparazzi are on the left. Notice how she eyeballs them in the early stages then focuses on her exit. Two modes of vision, one, hostile and two, reassured: two directions. Right from the start, her body’s primed for a sprint. And ... there she goes. I’ve looked at five other instances of the same thing. The pattern hardly varies.”
“Figures,” Bronstein said.
“Now look at event code SL/Q01, Bobby Keynes, the first of our cases. I’ll go four frames a second first so I can talk you through it. Keynes is here, on the left. Notice his eyes. He’s clearly looking for something, eyes sweeping, expression, anxious. He’s not even looking at the paparazzi. His body language is all wrong. I’m not just saying that. I ran the whole thing past the psychological profiler on floor two thirty minutes ago.”
“Thorough,” Bronstein said.
“I’m slowing it to two frames a second. Watch. Keynes reacts. He sees something right in front of him, rears slightly and then – that’s when the bullet comes in. If we extrapolate from his gaze at that moment, it comes in from exactly the same place.
“Watch the same thing from a different angle. Watch his eyes. Now his reaction. No one else has reacted, just him. And remember his witness statement: ‘The first I knew anything had happened, the man was dead. It took me a few seconds to realise what was going on.’ Doubly significant because this was the first murder. How did he know?”
Orlov sat back. “Presumably, as regards the other cases, up to and including Jilly Bestwick, you could argue that similar behaviour simply indicates that they were reasonably nervous in the wake of the preceding murders.”
“Except,” Hartley-Brown said, “that I’ve checked these against other celebrity exits elsewhere at the same points in time, exits with no killings. There’s nothing like the same degree of bodily anxiety. Now watch this.”
He double clicked on SL/Q05. Jilly Bestwick appeared with Robert Vincent, coming out of a guesthouse.
“Notice the sunglasses. Her instinct is to frustrate the paparazzi, but she’s obviously expecting something unpleasant. She removes them. Then – watch – she flinches. Before anything happens, she flinches at something in front of her. She almost changes direction then – bang, another dead photographer. She’s seen Kramski, she must have – the eye line’s a perfect match, as you can see ... from this frame here – and she knows what’s coming.”
Orlov sat back. “You’ve assembled a very persuasive argument.”
“Don’t forget,” Bronstein said, “before she went downstairs that day she said she was worried for the photographers. And there are all those weird meetings with Zane Cruse, another of our cases. It all mounts up. I’ve no idea why any of them would be involved, but it does look as if they are.”
“What do you want to do Jonathan?” Orlov said. “I think you deserve first say.”
Hartley-Brown sat with his elbows on his knees and the flats of his hands together. He rested his nose on his fingertips. “Thank you. I’m going to ask her to tell me the truth. The funny thing is, I know she knows I know – at least she’s aware I do on some level. I’m going to ask her to marry me. That’s not part of the plan and she might well say no. If she says yes and it means I have to leave the service, so be it, but I can’t see why it should, because I know she’s not involved in anything really murky. Don’t ask me how. I just do. If she really loves me, she’ll tell me the truth, I won’t even have to ask. And then I’ll tell you.”
“What’s your timetable?” Orlov said. “Sorry to pressure.”
“I’m taking her to meet my parents tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll confront her sometime during that, when we’re alone.”
“What if she is involved in something really murky?” Bronstein said.
“Then I’ll help her get out of it. I love her.”
Bronstein poured him a double bourbon and one for himself. He smiled wistfully. “I wish to God you were my boyfriend, Jonathan.”
